Nuada, who was king of the Tuatha de Dananns when the battle of Southern Moytura was fought, lost his arm in the fight. This, however, some skilled artificers whom he had with him skilfully replaced by one made of silver; so that he was always afterwards known as Nuada of the Silver Hand. Whether from this cause or some other not explained, he resigned the chief sovereignty to Breas, who, though a Fomorian by birth, held a chief command in the Tuatha de Danann army. Owing to his penurious habits and domineering disposition, Breas soon rendered himself very unpopular with the nobles of his Court; and, at a time when the discontent was at its height, a certain poet and satirist, Cairbré, the son of the poetess Etan, arrived at his Court. He was treated by the king in so shabby a manner and with such disrespect, that he left it in disgust; but, before doing so, he wrote and published so stinging a satire against the king, as to set the blood of the nobles boiling with indignation, and they insisted on his resigning the power he had held for seven years. "To this call the regent reluctantly acceded; and, having held a council with his mother, they both determined to retire to the Court of his father Elatha, at this time the great chief of Fomorian pirates, or Sea Kings, who then swarmed through all the German Ocean and ruled over the Shetland Islands and the Hebrides." Elatha agreed to provide his son with a fleet to conquer Ireland for himself from the Tuatha de Danann, if he could; and for this purpose collected all the men and ships lying from Scandinavia westwards for the intended invasion, the chief command being entrusted to Balor of the Evil Eye, conjointly with Breas. Having landed near Sligo, they pitched their tents on the spot--Carrowmore--where the battle was afterwards fought. Here they were attacked by Nuada of the Silver Hand, accompanied by the great Daghda, who had taken a prominent part in the previous battle, and other chiefs of note. The battle took place on the last day of October, and is eloquently described. The Fomorians were defeated, and their chief men killed. King Nuada was slain by Balor of the Evil Eye, but Balor himself fell soon after by a stone flung at him by Lug his grandson by his daughter Eithlenn. After an interval of forty years, according to the 'Annals of the Four Masters,' the Daghda succeeded to the vacant throne, and reigned eighty years.[217] From the above abstract--all the important passages of which are in the exact words of the translation--it is evident that the author of the tract considered the Fomorians and the Tuatha de Danann as the same people, or at least as two tribes of the same race, the chiefs of which were closely united to one another by intermarriage. He also identifies them with the Scandinavian Vikings, who played so important a part in Irish history down to the Battle of Clontarf, which happened in 1014.